In many ways, I suppose it could be said that life has improved. I have a level of stability which might exceed anything I've had since early childhood. I am finally able to farm on my own terms (I hope), to implement concepts, ideals, and dreams that have been waiting within me for over twenty years. The hope is that for the first time, I'll be able to plant trees and gardens and have every assurance of being able to harvest them the following year, or to pick fruit from those trees a decade from now.
I feel so impatient. There's so little time, and trees take much time, whether we have it or not. My body is older each year, more damaged each year. I don't feel that I can delay this work, it's waited too long already.
I am finding that there are things I need from my relationships, demands from the land, the soil which in turn are transmitted through me to those around me. A farm is an ecosystem, and I am a part of it. One cannot treat nature in an extractive fashion without being punished for it, and without causing damage. I would argue that objectifying and exploiting the earth is just as egregious as treating humans that way....except that nature will slap you back. You will, sooner or later, get what you deserve if you attempt to use and abuse Mother Earth. She has to be loved, nutured, fed, her needs considered.
I think of you. Eyes of sky. Why have I never expected from anyone the same things that I take for granted when caring for the soil that I hold between my hands? Why was I so ready to believe myself disposable, meaningless, when every earthworm deserves consideration? I think of slowly swaying, rippling streaks of red, protecting the culmination of their life's purpose, their dying wish. I wonder sometimes if I took the wrong fork in the stream, but there's no time to swim back. I can only struggle on and hope to find some purpose at the end.
